Chalk

 What happens when three kids come across a bag of "magic" chalk on a playground on a rainy day? You'll have to read Chalk (2010) by David Thomson in order to find out!

While Chalk is a wordless children's picture book, the story line itself weaves a spell on the reader. Three children just happen upon a playground during a nasty, rainy day. They find a bag of chalk hanging from the mouth of a dinosaur-shaped seesaw. As they start playing, their chalk drawings come to life. All is fun until one draws a dinosaur which terrorizes the children!

The book cover features "demand" prominently, as the dinosaur toy holding the bag of chalk looks straight at you, as though challenging you to take the magic chalk back from his big, plastic mouth. Each page image shows the action and completely lacks framing, meaning the illustrations cover the entire page. The author uses some framing carefully, depicting only individual characters within the frames to give the reader a window into that character's thoughts. You know the boy in the yellow slicker is up to no good by the close up, framed view of his face as he pulls the green chalk stick from the bag.

I loved this book! I will most likely be using it with my kindergartners very soon. The images lend easily to questions like "What does that look on her/his face look like?" "What is she/he thinking?" "What will she/he draw?" and "How will they get out of this mess?" We would also go through the story, deciding and making a list of what is real and what is not real.

Regardless, Chalk is a wordless picturebook that will be a permanent part of my classroom library soon!